Keep specialist breastfeeding support at Barnet Hospital, North London

[CounsellorGirl]

Have you or someone close to you given birth at Barnet or Chase Farm Hospitals in recent years?

If the answer is yes, then chances are you will have heard of Bella Dale.

If the answer is no, but you value the importance of being able to receive effective breastfeeding support and perhaps have received it yourself then please read on.

Bella heads up the Antenatal Education and Breastfeeding Support at Barnet Hospital. She is a specialist midwife, and a real expert in her field. Hospital bosses are proposing to axe her post as they believe it to be ?non-business critical.?

As a local mum, who gave birth to one of her children at Barnet Hospital, I am outraged that the hospital bosses are considering cutting the Infant Feeding Specialist post. The breastfeeding support I received from Bella in the first few months of my son's life was invaluable. I continued to breastfed him for 22 months, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would not have managed to do so for more than 2 or 3 weeks if I had not had this input.

If we want to see this service continue we need to take action NOW. You can sign an e-petition at www.ipetitions.com/petition/breastfeeding. The petition has to be presented to the Chief Executive of Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust by 6th October. Please tell friends, neighbours and anyone else you know who might be interested in signing the petition.

have signed for you, hope it helps

Thank you. I feel we have to at least try, rather than just sit back and do nothing.

OH no this is really really upsetting , I gave birth to dd2 6 wks ago there and through the last few mths of pregnancy Bella looked after me with face to face meetings to help support me (previous PTSD and terrified of being pg again). I had problems seeing her often as they had to send her to wards to work and lots of my appts got cancelled, which I found hard for lots of reasons (she was seeing me as part of her programme of looking after vulnrable mums). I dont think managment realised the effect of doing this to us mums. She then suddenly disapeared , I thought due to illness , was she actually on gardening leave ????? Oh NO is she not there still??? I wanted to tell her all about my birth , great Bf and take dd2 up to see her. Theyve all been so great at Barnet , but esp Bella as she gave me confidence in giving birth there and following hypnobrithing, she took the fear and mystery out of me dealing with midwives.

CounsellorGirl , would u like me to put that web site into a link on here?

Please do link for petition.We should get lots of names like that.

petition link done for you and signed

signed

I think its linked on the donation bit kisi.

ohh sheet.

didn't mean to link it to the donation page, sorry! new link not to the donation page.

Have signed petition with the following in the comments section (thanks Californifrau for the heads-up):

My husband, dh's name, and I urge you to reconsider for the following reasons:

Anyone who has looked into the issue knows of the many many reasons why breast milk is the best way to feed babies.

There are many many women and babies for whom breastfeeding does not come naturally, witness the low rates in the UK.

Bella Dale is a very experienced breastfeeding counsellor - these are like gold dust and should be treasured.

My personal experience is that Bella's expert help, both one-to-one and at the breastfeeding support group at Barnet Hospital, put a stop to recurring mastitis and enabled me to breastfeed my son for a year.

I have since moved from the area, but have been able to pass on bits of Bella's advice to friends, therefore helping their babies benefit from their mothers' milk.

As well as being a source of information, Bella is one of the kindest, most compassionate and sensible people you could meet. Her breastfeeding support group was very well attended in the period I needed help (late 2003/early 2004) and I believe that this is a necessary - not optional - service for the hospital to continue providing.

I would be delighted for you to contact me if you need further convincing that to axe this post would be a grave disservice to families in the area

I had both my dds at barnet and went to Bella's bfing classes before dd1 was born. She was great and she gave me some help after dd1's birth which was very complicated and traumatic.

Am very sorry to hear about this.

'non business critical' - so clearly hospitals are now businesses and not for helping the sick and pregnant!

btw melsy wherabouts do you live if you don't mind me asking? I am in whetstone.

Fucking idiots.
Do they not realise that b/feeding saves the nHS millions of pounds???

Why not just have done with it and let Nestle come in and run the maternity ward???

Im in Enfield donnie, why do you ask ? (not menaing to sound surly !!)

just curious! wondered if you were anywhere near me.

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Signed. I didn't meet this lady but do have a soft spot for Barnet General as they looked after me when I had a bleed at 8 months pregnancy with DD. All the local hospitals here - Barnet, Chase Farm, Welwyn and the Royal Free get a really bad press, mostly deserved but sometimes they do great things.

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Not to far away hey donnie !

I assume there isnt/hasnt been a drop in session for some months now ? Would have been good to go to one , just to ask the million questions Ive been posting on here about bf. I do remember posters saying help wasnt available from July time when sitting waitng for ante natal appts.

Come on girls.Let's harness our latent power!!

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